Printing-surface.



H. C. GAMMETER.

PRINTING SURFACE.

APPLICATION FILED JUNE 19. 1913.

Patented Feb. 22, 1916.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

HARRY C. GAMMETER, OF BBATENAHL, OHIO, ASSIGNOR TO THE AMEFICAN MULTI- GRAPH COMPANY, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, A CORPORATION OF OHIO.

ram'rme-soaracn.

Application filed June 19, 1913.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HARRY G. GAMMETER,

a citizen of the United States, residing at Bratenahl, in the county of Guyahoga and State of Ohio, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Printing-Surfaces,'of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description, reference being had to the accompanying drawings.

The object of this invention is to provide a cheap, light and effective printing surface, wherein a page form may be made up and used as a rigid unit. To this end I emboss the successive lines on separate strips of thin metal, which are then suitably mounted on a holder. This enables the embossing to be done by any suitable machine adapted to emboss a line. It does away with any distortion liable to result from embossing a number of lines on the same late; it prevents errors in the embossing rom destroying more than the line where they occur, and it enables different lines to be changed without tearing down the whole form.

My invention is hereinafter more fully explained and its essential characteristics are summarized in the claims.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a sectional perspective view of a printing plate made up with my embossed strips. This view also shows a portion of the plate before the strips have been applied. Fig. 2 is a perspective view of one of the embossed strips alone; Fig. 3 is a cross section of a printing surface made up with my strips mounted on a curve for use one rotary machine; Fig. 4 is an enlarged cross section of one of the strips.

My embossed strip consists of a piece of thin sheet metal A formed in a channelshape or with flanged edges a and carrying suitable cameo characters a formed by embossing from the under side of the strip, as shown in Fig. 4.

B, in Fig. 1, indicates a holder for the strip consisting, as there shown of a planular plate, preferably of'metah'having parallel grooves b. The flanges of successive strips occupy these grooves and hold themselves to the plate by the resilience of the flanges.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Feb. 22, 1916.

Serial No. 774,563.

Fig. 3 shows, at B, a curved or segmental form of holder, which has parallel sided grooves'b, whose central planes are radial. The same strips A may be mounted on this form of holder.

In making up the strips they are embossed between suitable male and female dies, preferably by a suitable key-operated embossing machine. I regard it as preferable to form the strips into the channel shape shown before the embossing is effected, but the strips may be embossed flat and the flanges thereafter bent to give the strips the channel shape. After the strips are mounted on the holder, a rigid page form is provided. Any errors in striking the wrong characters in embossing simply spoils the one line. without interfering with the rest of the lines.

Changes of a portion of the form may readily be made without disturbin the rest. This is of considerable value in orms for circular letters, where it is desired to change, for example, only the date, or the opening paragraph.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim is:

1. A unitary changeable printing surface consisting of a body having a series of parallel grooves and thin channelshaped strips each formed with a line of characters thereon extending lengthwise of the strip, the flanges of such strips being resilient and the strips being mounted on the ribs between the grooves and held in place by the pressure of the flanges on the sides of the cupying'the same grooves in the body and the strips being held in place bv' the friction of the flanges on the SldOS- of the 'ribs between the grooves.

In testimony whereof, I hereunto aflix my signature.

HARRY C. GAMMETER. 

